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3-D Self-Assembling Polymer and New Microchips

Posted on June 10, 2013.

3-D Self-Assembling Polymer Materials Could Lead to New Microchips.

As computer chips continue to shrink, developers are reaching the limits on how small they can make patterns for wires. A team of researchers at MIT believe they have a solution to this problem. By using self-assembling polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions, they found a new way of making complex three-dimensional structures.

Researchers at MIT have found a new way of making complex three-dimensional structures using self-assembling polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions. The work has the potential to usher in a new generation of microchips and other devices made up of submicroscopic features.

Although similar self-assembling structures with very fine wires have been produced before, this is the first time the structures have been extended into three dimensions with different, independent configurations on different layers, the researchers say. The research is published this week in the journal Science. There has been “a lot of interest” among semiconductor researchers in finding ways to produce chip features that are much narrower than the wavelength of light — and hence narrower than what can be achieved using present light-based fabrication systems.